Jon Kukla's well-meant quoting of Leopold von Ranke in the debate over present day standards applied to historical slavery issues makes me more than a little nervous. Both the study and the teaching of history owe a great deal to Ranke, but my experiences among his countrymen following World War II give me great pause when it comes to "God's will" explanations of atrocities and revisionist explanations for behavior which don't stand up under any model. My father was in the U.S. Army and I spent six years with him in Germany following the war. I spoke German fluently - Polish and Ukrainian reasonably well. In addition to overhearing the conversations of adult Germans, I well understood the cynical attitude of the average American military man to the typical German expression of "we didn't know'' or, more frequently, "it was different then." Some things just don't pass the smell test. The unnoticed disappearance of six to seven million European Jews is one and that slavery was morally a different issue in 1776 or 1826 than now is another. That it would have required uncommon courage for a politician in Jefferson's Virginia to have opposed slavery is a given. So is the fact of the immorality of the system. Jefferson was a classicist. He damn well knew the arguments pro and con on the issue. Of course there were economic issues. There always are. The moral issues seem quiet unequivocal whether made more than two thousand years earlier or by the abolitionists of his day. Bill Russell Alexandria, Virginia To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html